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The pensions category of the FN100 Most Influential list of most influential people in the European financial markets has seen a lot of change this year, as reform, regulation and market turmoil loom large on the industry's agenda. Here we outline the thinking behind our choices.

Our choices were heavily swayed by the imminent overhaul of Europe’s biggest savings industry. New rules obliging all companies to offer workers a retirement plan come into force in the UK from October this year – and a pool of private retirement savings of over £1.5 trillion, successful reform here will have repercussions far and wide.

With responsibility for overseeing this seismic shift, UK pensions minister Steve Webb is in a position to influence the debate for a generation. His creative thinking on improving defined-contribution pensions, drawing on the expertise of European systems such as the Dutch and Danish, is a very good start – and puts him top of the list.

This choice was also influenced by the 50 industry judges who voted in our inaugural Financial News Pensions Awards, back in April – who rated Webb the 'Most Influential in UK Pensions'.

ATP, the €102bn Danish pensions giant, is a familiar presence on the FN100 list. As markets have tumbled and bond-yields in safe-haven nations like Denmark and the UK have slumped, ATP's risk-aware investment approach has kept its head above water at a time when few schemes can say the same. But it was the high-profile decision to enter the UK market, ahead of the auto-enrolment reforms, that put chief executive Lars Rohde in the second slot on our list this year.

The combination of a long-term track record of success coupled with bold steps or significant achievements in the last 12 months was also key to our other choices.

In the corporate world, the group head of pensions at Tesco, Ruston Smith, made the third place thanks to a decade of market-leading provision at the UK's biggest retailer, and in the past year, the establishment of a new in-house investment team to manage its £6bn fund.

Similarly, Joanne Segars has been the public face of the UK's pensions lobby for seven years; while former Lehman banker Alan Rubenstein has three years under his belt at the government's Pension Protection Fund. But they came together last year to set up the £4bn Pensions Infrastructure Platform; an initiative that could come into its own with public finances under pressure, and funds crying out for inflation-linked returns.

Financial News also included two Nordic industry figures on the FN100 list, which is indicative of how the creation of large, pooled public funds can drive the development of local asset-management industries.

Sweden’s Mats Langensjö is currently reviewing his country’s €100bn AP funds, and is shortly to join local hedge fund Brummer & Partners to help them break into pensions. Meanwhile Knut Kjaer, founding chief of Norges Bank Investment Management, has parlayed his experience running Norway's €460bn sovereign wealth fund into a series of advisory roles on the boards of Europe's biggest institutional investors, and a new hedge fund, set up with the backing of industry legend Julian Robertson.

With the still-current threat of Solvency II-style funding rules, Patrick Burke, chairman of the European Federation of Retirement Provision, has made the list by doing a sterling job in communicating this threat to UK and Irish funds over the years. Last year his job got harder, when EFRP's veteran chief executive Chris Verhagen stepped down. Burke shouldered some of the lobbying burden at the same time as picking out Verhagen's successor, Matti Lepällä.

But there were plenty of candidates who narrowly missed out on making the FN100 list but deserve a mention.

They include Emma Douglas, who for years has worked on designing and implementing DC pensions at BlackRock and now Mercer. Similarly, a mention needs to be made to the team behind the UK's National Employment Savings Trust, led by Tim Jones and chief investment officer Mark Fawcett, who topped last year's list. They have done the hard work laying the ground for auto-enrolment; it is now up to companies and regulators to make it succeed.

The main rival to Loudiadis' Rothesay Life operation is still Pension Corporation, founded by Edmund Truell, however Truell has been increasingly focusing his attention on other ventures – and formally stepped down from Pension Corp last week.

We also wanted to recognise people for profile; for taking public roles and influencing others. But in an industry where fund executives and trustees do not seek profits or new business, publicity is not a top priority.

Industry heavyweights such as Clive Gilchrist of Bestrustees, whose work on the Nortel Networks court case could have far-reaching consequences; or Allan Johnston and Hugh Smart, whose years of hard work at the British Steel Pension Scheme have made it one of the UK's best-run funds, would be the first to admit they do not court such attention.

Mike Taylor, chief executive of the London Pensions Fund Authority, and Chris Martin of Independent Trustee Solutions, are examples of individuals from previous years' lists whose profile has inevitably dropped after big deals were struck, or campaigns successfully concluded. But for all these individuals, the hard work continues behind the scenes.

We might also have mentioned industry figures fighting the good fight with EU regulators, such as Guus Warringa and his team at Dutch pensions manager APG, who made last year's list for a stand against new derivatives rules. They have kept up the pressure this year.